Up really early to make an appearance on WindyCityLive that will air on Friday, April 8. I am amazed that people are this interested in this challenge. And make no mistake, it is a challenge, it is not a game.

There are a few things from yesterday that are worth commenting on.

I left the house 20 minutes later than I intended because I made my breakfast—two eggs, cheese and a scallion scrambled, served in a whole wheat tortilla, which I ate in the car. While I was not late to Harper, I never felt like I caught up all day.

Parking at Harper was an issue. It always is. That’s why I thought I needed those 20 minutes. I talked a campus police officer into NOT ticketing me because I was speaking. But that seemed not quite right. (I parked in a staff lot beyond the guest lot which was full)

The coffee that people were drinking looked excellent. Well, actually I didn’t see the coffee just the cups. I’m going to have to rethink Starbucks.

My appointment after Harper was late. 45 minutes. Even though I had tangerines with me, this put me at a house disadvantage for the rest of the day. I did actually “cheat” meeting her at yet another coffee shop because it was closer to where I was going to have to be and ordering an apple fritter which I think the manager discounted it calling it the SNAP discount–$1.75 which actually fits in my remaining food budget. Real people living on SNAP all the time must also get caught in these scheduling “nightmares.””

Thank G-d for my husband, Simon, who is a willing partner and a really good cook. He brought me the lunch I had carefully planned out, cottage cheese and chopped vegetables. He threw in a little box of raisins we had around the house and I “stole” potato chips from the Hebrew School. Later even though I said I would make corn chowder, he turned a cheap cut of meat into Chinese stir fry and rice. Again, it was a timing question.

I got lost in time when WindyCityLive called and wanted to do a feature on me. As many times as I say this challenge is not about me, it is about awareness and advocacy, people are intrigued by what I could possibly eat for $4.44. So I will be traipsing into Chicago to tape a segment. That meant finding pictures and getting out the seder plates.

Hebrew School. These late afternoons are the hardest. It is hard to teach when you are hungry. And really, I am not really hungry. But why then do I have a headache? Yes, late afternoon hot chocolate seems to help. At least temporarily—and we didn’t really plan for that. And yet, we had some in the house and in my office.

I have a colleague, Rabbi Cindy Enger, who opted not do the SNAP Challenge this time. Her approach instead as she prepares for Passover is a Zero Waste Passover. I know that my New Year’s Resolution was to waste far less food then we do. Most Americans waste a lot of food. 70 billion pounds of food in America, according to Feeding America. That’s 70 billion! Like Rabbi Enger, and many other Jews, I try to use up open packaged food before Passover. This year, with the SNAP Challenge I am even more aware (and more committed to Zero Waste. Really, remember the open containers of olives in my fridge? There were actually six. Two black olives, 2 Spanish olives. One green olives stuffed with blue cheese. One kalamata.) We have finished one, a jar of raspberry jam, the last of the soy sauce and a container of SmartBalance.)

I am also not spending money on other things. For instance, this morning, I opted to take the train into Chicago. Paying to park (again, thanks to my husband, because I could not figure out how that machine works and I am hoping my credit card did not get debited seven times!) and walking from Union Station to the television studio. On SNAP I couldn’t have afforded a cab!

When I emerged from the train I was immediately approached by someone who hoped I would help him buy a sandwich. I explained I couldn’t. I did pack a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for the trip home that I might have given him but after yesterday I was worried I would be short—and I did in fact eat it on the way home. So many people, so many very hungry. Am I helping any of them? Should I have given my sandwich away to someone who really needed it?

Similarly, one of my non-food rewards is a massage. After running a race on Sunday, that might have been nice Tuesday. But no massage on SNAP.

And while I walked from Union Station to State and Lake, I am not getting the same amount of exercise I got last week even. Again, I think it is the constant focus on food and timing. I am hopeful that I can today. Maybe today…

It really bothers me that people are so interested in can I make it on the SNAP Challenge. Perhaps it does make a good human interest story. Perhaps it does raise awareness. But it is not so important: What am I eating? Is it enough? Are you hungry? Can I give you food? This story was not supposed to be about me.

It is supposed to be about the hard work that many people do on the front lines, day in and day out. Gretchen, Maureen, Kerri, Ruth, Kim, Michelle, Debbie, Amit and Judith and David. The ones who work tirelessly to make sure that people do have enough food. That smile. That offer compassion. That work for the systemic changes necessary. So, so many, too many to name them all.

And the real story is that people have to do this day in and day out. And SNAP benefits alone often don’t cut it. People who are on SNAP often have to scrounge for food and other necessities in other places. They rely on food banks, the Community Crisis Center, Food for Greater Elgin, Salvation Army, Red Cross, United Way, individual churches and synagogues, soup kettles and all the volunteers who serve.

Recently I received a phone call from someone who had been part of my global justice fellowship with American Jewish World Service. “Are you still in Peter Roskam’s district?” Yes, I answered. She is now working on global food insecurity issues and needed someone for a panel honoring the Congressman’s work on hunger. I readily agreed and it turned out to be this week. So on a rainy morning, I schlepped to Harper College to join a small panel from the Global Poverty Project to speak about global food insecurity. What follows are my remarks…

As David said, I am Rabbi Margaret Frisch Klein, the rabbi at Congregation Kneseth Israel in Elgin. I am honored to be on this panel to honor Representative Peter Roskam with whom I have worked on several issues already. Hunger is an issue I have been working, dare I say on a college campus, for 30 years. It is shocking to me that hunger has gotten worse, not only globally, but right here in Elgin. There are 19,000 food insecure people in Elgin and despite good work by agencies like the Community Crisis Center, Food for Greater Elgin, United Way, Salvation Army, PADs, and others who we at Congregation Kneseth Israel partner with, food insecurity remains an intractable issue..

Our congregation works on food issues doing several things. We have our own little food bank which members can take food with no questions asked. We grow fresh produce in our community garden, just a simple 8×16 plot from which we delivered 1100 pounds of fresh produce to Food for Greater Elgin last year. We host an annual food drive during our high holidays, and then again the citywide Martin Luther King Day food drive. We volunteer with Food for Greater Elgin, PADs and the Elgin Cooperative Ministries which provides the weekly soup kitchens. Last summer we worked weekly with ECM to deliver lunches to children who otherwise without their school lunch program might have gone hungry. We are a partner with Mazon, a Jewish response to hunger, Part of the reason we like supporting Mazon, is their commitment to advocacy. While it is important to feed the hungry person sitting before you today—it is critical that we solve the systemic problem of hunger in America and around the world. Otherwise we are just putting on bandaids.

This comes naturally to us. We are commanded to take care of the widow, the orphan, the stranger amongst us, or as I say the most marginalized amongst us. 36 times it tells us to do this. We are to leave the corners of our fields so that the poor can glean. Most of us don’t have fields, but that is the exact reason, the root you might say, of why we put in a community garden.

It is also the reason I am currently doing the SNAP Challenge, living this week on a food stamp budget to call awareness to this growing problem in this country. Others in the congregation and the wider community are doing it with me and while we are only on Day Three, the learnings have been many. Yesterday I spent a lot of time thinking about how one is social on a limited budget. How do you celebrate a child’s birthday? Because buying a store bought birthday cake would have put us over our budget.

And while there are 19,000 food insecure people in Elgin, hunger is a global problem. That’s why it is so important to support the Global Food Security Act, introduced into Congress by Representative Christopher Smith, Republican from NJ and co-sponsored by 123 members of Congress including almost all the representatives from Illinois.

According to the World Health Organization, poor nutrition causes almost half, 45% of all deaths in children under 5. One out of six children in the developing world is underweight, about 100 million. One in four children is “stunted”, that number grows to 1 in 3 in the developing world. We could sit here and discuss statistics all day. And they are alarming.

We know unequivocally from the research that children who are malnourished have a harder time learning. We know that children who are malnourished can suffer from Failure to Thrive. My own rabbi’s wife, Dr. Deborah Frank, is the Director of the Grow Clinic at Boston Medical Center. She recently won the AMA’s Leadership Award presented here in Chicago at their annual convention. She said, in accepting that award that, “As a pediatrician I can never forget that the policies enacted in the capitals of our nation and our states will be written ultimately on the bodies and brains of our young children,”

Her recent research as the director of the Children’s HealthWatch team has uncovered alarming evidence about the increasing risk of hunger among young children nationally, ever since budget cuts have been made to SNAP. In Boston, particularly they have found more and more families of infants and toddlers who are homeless or having difficulty maintaining secure housing. Recent work of Children’s HealthWatch also uncovered that within groups of poor families, those whose children have chronic health problems are even more likely than their peers to struggle with hunger.

If you need more details and more correlation from her work, I have electronic links to her actual academic and professional articles available. When I told her I was speaking this morning and asked whether she had any particular message, she said she didn’t know as much about global food insecurity but what concerns her, having just returned from yet another hunger summit, is the connection between violence and hunger. “War causes hunger. That’s what we are seeing in Syria. People don’t have reliable access to food. If they don’t have access to food, the children can’t go to school. They can’t learn. The families become refugees. It is that simple.” She couldn’t have been any clearer.

She also worries about scorched earth issues. If people can’t farm, they can’t eat. These are the kinds of things I saw when I was a Global Justice Fellow with American Jewish World Service last summer when I was in Guatemala. Guatemala is only one example of many of the 19 countries that AJWS works in. The unique specifics are horrific. In Guatemala, 200,000 people, mostly indigenous people, were murdered or “disappeared: in the 1980s as part of a civil war. Make no mistake, there was nothing civil about it and there are still leaders being disposed and tried for genocide.

One of the real issues remaining as is that access to land is denied. Mining companies have been brutal is stripping away land from indigenous people. One of AJWS’s grantees, CCDA, use coffee and advocacy to secure land rights for indigenous people. Leocadio Juracan, the coordinator recently was elected to Congress. He said, “we’re not just in the business of buying and selling coffee. We are using resources we have to work for justice in our communities.” What impressed me the day we were on the coffee plantation, was how they use education to improve the lives of women. Many of whom have never been to school but are learning to grow food on their patios in container gardens, not unlike CKI’s own community garden. One woman told us that with the proceeds of her patio garden and the one chicken she was able to send her daughter through high school. Wow! Access to land, to food, to education.

But there is a problem. Despite the good work that CCDA is doing, there are arrest warrants out for many of the leaders. No matter how heated our current political season has become, we are not rounding up and arresting our leaders.

Moral leadership is about taking risks. If I am not challenging my people to work on issues like hunger, I am not doing my job. Although frankly, I don’t understand how anyone could argue that children should go to bed hungry. Nonetheless, sometimes, I make people angry with my activism. Sometimes, maybe even often, the congressman and I do not agree on individual policy. However, if I don’t agree, I can’t have him arrested. I can’t have him disappeared. I have to work with him, and he with me. But on this I think we do agree, stopping violence, through strong legal measures as suggested in the book the Locust Effect by Gary Haugen is critical to stopping world hunger. Recently there were two murders in Honduras of AJWS grantees. Berta Cáceres and Nelson García, leaders of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organisations of Honduras (COPINH). These two defenders of human rights were assassinated because they led an organization and a broader movement fighting to protect the land rights of the Lenca indigenous communities in Honduras.We have asked our US elected officials to demand justice in Hondoras.

Moral leadership is why I have to support the Global Food Security Act which puts some of those strong measures and food assistance in place. So that more Guatemalas, Hondorases, Darfurs, Syrias cannot happen. So that as the prophet Isaiah said, “Every one neath their vine and fig tree can live in peace and unafraid.” So that every child can have a birthday cake.

Today was the day I knew would be long and complicated. Once a month I have a program called Java and Jews. I sit at various local coffee shops and discuss the issues of the day with whomever turns up.

I explained to each of the managers what I was doing last week and that while I would be there, I would not actually be eating or drinking. I ate my oatmeal at home and set off.

My first event of the day was at Starbucks. I walked in with my carefully brewed coffee from home in its bright purple Starbucks travel mug. I sat down and waited. No one said anything to me. I looked just like every other Starbucks customer, checking email on my laptop. My usual baristas smiled at me. Asked how my day was.

I enjoyed my conversation with a new congregant and for the two hours we sat there I never once was hungry or worried about SNAP.

I realized, I could hide there all day. No one would think I was poor or on SNAP. I could be “normal”. I could pass. And I know people who do precisely that, particularly in New York.

But then I had other thoughts. I wondered how people who are on SNAP handle social engagements. After the economy tanked in 2008 friends and business associates of mine curtailed meeting for lunch and instead met for coffee. It was cheaper with less strings attached. Less commitment. It seemed natural to extend that to my rabbinate. Easier often to meet someone for coffee at Starbucks or Blue Box than to open my office. Safer (but that is another story). I usually offer to buy but do some people decline for financial reasons?
Do I need to rethink this?

I have heard from people I know well. People who have been on SNAP or Food Stamps. People who did not qualify who live on $30 of food a week because they did not qualify. People who did not qualify because one live-at home adult kid was making too much or because they had health insurance. People who were on SNAP during college or graduate school. People who are just barely getting by now who say they do this every week.

So much of eating is social. How does this happen if on a SNAP budget? Can we entertain? If it is a potluck, maybe? Should we try to do one this Shabbat? Have we budgeted for it? We could do spaghetti…

How does someone have a birthday party for a child? Can they bake a cake? Because a purchased cake from the bakery section of the grocery store would have put us over budget. Cupcakes? Goody bags?

I rushed home. My oatmeal was holding me but I needed to be at Blue Box in an hour. Too early for lunch. I poured orange juice in my cup and left. The owner of Blue Box asked, “Is this the week I can’t give you any food? Can I refill your coffee at least?” I explained that yes, this was the week I was doing the SNAP Challenge, and no, my cup runneth over and I was fine. Several people met me. Great conversations. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the young boys’ potato chips.

Most of the time I never eat potato chips. This week it seems to be all I want.

After “lunch”, remember I was not eating at Blue Box, I went to make a hospital call to someone about to have surgery. By then, 2PM, I was starving. I raced home and made lunch. Cottage cheese with green pepper, tomato and cucumber. It was filling.
I raced off to the third of these coffee klatsches. One person, a fellow rabbi, came. She also offered to buy me coffee. Truth is, I can’t do three coffees in one day and I am not accepting these offers these weeks. But I knew I also had choir coming. We chatted away, me sipping my afternoon, home brewed hot chocolate, she her Panera coffee.

By the time I got back to the synagogue I was a little woozy and helped myself to an English muffin that the school has on hand. I rationalized that they would just go bad and someone should eat them. And I begin to figure out how people need to stretch SNAP benefits. How they must use other resources, like food pantries. How all of this takes so much time and energy. Someone nicely sent me a list of resources available in Elgin most of which I knew about and use to refer people to. You’ll see that list tomorrow.

Dinner was stew in a crock-pot, using up the last of the rice and beans from last night. It was good and warm and filling, particularly on this cold, rainy night. And there are still left overs. But I am not like Simon. Simon eats the same breakfast day in and day out.. Without fail. I crave variety. I suspect that people on a SNAP budget have much less variety. That would be hard for me. That and how it might curtail social interaction.

I realize how fortunate I am. This works, for this week at least, because I have a husband who is doing most of the cooking, a good, well appointed kitchen, the love and know-how of cooking myself.

This week we read, as Etz Chayyim puts it, “The Initiation of Formal Worship”, how to offer sacrifices and the ordination of Aaron and his sons. The entire sacrificial system was set up to recreate the experience of Sinai and to allow the people to draw close to G-d. Even the name of one of the offerings, “Korban” shares a root with “draw close.”

It was smelly, messy, bloody. I can’t imagine Moses—or my ordaining rabbi—anointing me with oil and then smearing blood on my right ear. I can’t imagine that G-d wants the burnt offering with its pleasing odor, a gift to the Lord-as the Lord had commanded Moses. (Lev. 8:21)

It is not how we do it today. It is important to talk about this chapter this weekend, precisely because it is this weekend. Christians believe that Jesus is their sin offering. That somehow, Jesus’s blood atones for their sins. The language is rooted from the Hebrew Scriptures. From right here. It is essentially Christian midrash. But there are some important differences as the two religions continued to evolve.

And that is important. When Jesus was killed, he died a Jew. Christianity emerged later. My colleague, Rabbi Evan Moffic, has just written a book about the Jewishness of Jesus. I have read several of these and this one has an interesting twist. He explores Jesus from within his Jewishness with more of a spiritual vantage. Shortly after Jesus was killed, Judaism went through its biggest transition ever, from a religion of sacrifice to a religion of prayer and study.

Today, in Judaism we don’t need an intercessor. You do not have to pray to Jesus or through Mary or the saints to have a relationship to G-d. In Judaism today you don’t need sacrificial offerings. You don’t need blood. In fact, since the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, there has not been animal sacrifice. And as I often say, I am not planning to start having weekly barbecues in the synagogue parking lot—although they might be tasty and the Men’s Club does own a Weber Grill.

Instead we need deeds of lovingkindness.

The story is told that Rabban Yohanan Ben Zakkai and Rabbi Joshua were walking by the ruins of the Temple. Rabbi Joshua said, “Woe to us that the place where the atonement for the sins of Israel was made has been destroyed!” But Rabban Yohanan Ben Zakkai replied, “Do not be grieved, my son. Do you not know that we have a means of making atonement that is as good as this? And what is it? Gemilut hassadim – acts of loving-kindness, as it is said, ‘For I desire hesed – lovingkindness – and not sacrifice!'” (Hosea 6:6). Avot d’Rabbi Natan 4:21.

Instead we need prayer. We need prayer because it offers us a way to connect with something bigger than ourselves. We need prayer because it can be centering, grounding, balancing. We need prayer because it brings hope. We need prayer because it offers community.

Now prayer can be a very difficult topic. I am currently reading a great book, Making Prayer Real, which lays out what some of the difficulties are. For him, “When I participate in a typical traditional service most anywhere in the world, I have two problems:
1. The prayers are said too fast.
2. It takes too long.”

We want to make sure we are doing services right. We can’t miss any word. So we tend to rush through services because while we want to do it right, we have lots of other places to be. I actually had people get up and move around the room. Using the four corners, I asked people to select one of these statements:
I come to synagogue for services:
1. Because I have to…a sense of obligation, commandment
2. Because I like to connect with the community
3. Because I want to experience/connect with the Divine in some way
4. Because I want to experience some balance in my life. It centers me. It grounds me.

The groups were pretty evenly split. Why do you come to synagogue?

__I come for the rabbi’s sermon
__I come for the words on the page in the Siddur
__I come to say Kaddish or Misheberach
__I come to make sure others can say Kaddish
__I come for the Torah
__I come for the music
__I come for the cookies

While the book, the siddur, is a wonderful historical document, and many of the prayers were crafted 2000 years ago, it was not meant to be the only form of prayer. The prayer book is the structure, the keva. The kavanah, the intention, the thoughts/words behind the words maybe even more important. The words that the heart prompts. But for Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, the keva provides a framework to see him through the days when he is just not feeling it. “How grateful I am to God that there is a duty to worship, a law to remind my distraught mind that it is time to think of God, time to disregard my ego for at least a moment! It is such happiness to belong to an order of the divine will. I am not always in a mood to pray. I do not always have the vision and the strength to say a word in the presence of God. But when I am weak, it is the law that gives me strength; when my vision is dim, it is duty that gives me insight” (“Man’s Quest for God,” page 68).

There is much, much more to be said about prayer and sacrifice and we will do that as we work our way through Leviticus this year.

At the end of Making Prayer Real, there are a series of exercises that can help with individuals who are searching for something and not finding it in their synagogue worship service. If that is you, you are not alone. Only 17% of synagogue members join in order to attend services. And those who do come regularly, come out of a sense of obligation, to make sure others can say Kaddish, because they want to say a misheberach, to hear Torah, (thankfully) for the sermon, but mostly to be part of community.

There is a delightful children’s book where the grandmother takes her granddaughter to services for the first time. The young child gets squirmy. The grandmother assures her that “G-d loves cookies too.” Many of us show up, not expecting to meet G-d or connect with the Divine, but to enjoy a little nosh and some good conversation after the service is over. And that is OK.

But what will it take to make services inspiring, so that people want to be there for the service itself? Stay tuned. That is what we will continue to explore.

In the meantime, I had just such an experience this weekend, knowing that I was going to be talking about this very topic. I had a clergy colleague friend come Friday night. Three weeks ago he unexpectedly and suddenly lost his wife while they were traveling back to Elgin from seeing family. His grief has been profound and public. His faith has been real and poignant. His courage extraordinary. But it surprised me that he would be coming to synagogue on Good Friday, one of the holiest days of the Christian calendar. I introduced him and his mother. Then I began services like always. Talking about the two angels as we sing Shalom Aleichem to welcome each other and Shabbat. Thinking about what peace really means to someone who works for the Church of the Brethren, a peace church. On the day his wife died, a Friday, I paid a condolence call on her boss, my neighbor. The first thing I saw when I walked in their house was a giant wood sign. Just one word. Shalom.

When we got to the first Mourner’s Kaddish I was moved to tears. Written in Aramaic, the vernacular of Jesus’s day so that everybody could understand it, it never mentions death. Instead, it praises (and extolls, and glorifies) G-d for life itself. How profound to be able to say these very words any time–but especially with my friend there on Good Friday.  That is what prayer is all about. I hope he found some comfort in it too.

Remember not to forget….
This is the Shabbat we are told to remember not to forget Amalek. We read this just before Purim because we are also told that Haman is a descendent of Amalek. Let’s read it together.

Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt. How, undeterred by fear of G-d, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear. Therefore, when the Lord your G-d grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your G-d is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget! (Deuteronomy 25:17-19)

And yet, since we just celebrated Saint Patrick’s Day I found this on my Facebook feed posted by a congregant. Old Irish words of wisdom:

Always remember to forget
The things that made you sad.
But never forget to remember
The things that made you glad

Always remember to forget the friends that proved untrue.
But never forget to remember those that have stuck by you.
Always remember to forget the troubles that passed away.
But never forget to remember the blessing that come each day.

It would seem to be the exact opposite. We Jews spend a lot of time talking about memory. Zachor. Remember. Yizkor, the Service of Remembrance. Remember that we were slaves in the land of Egypt. Remember, as this week’s portion tells us, never to forget.

What then is the role of memory? I think it has to be to remember the bad and the good. It keeps us grounded. It keeps us connected to the generations that came before. It brings us comfort.

But what is the difference between memory and nostalgia. I think sometimes people want to return to that day when they walked to school in the snow storm, up that giant hill. And then walked home in the snow storm—up that same giant hill. Or those who want to return to the shtel. That is somehow glamorized by Fiddler on the Roof. But make no mistake it was no picnic. Or that commercial on now for Direct TV with the settlers. Little House on the Prairie was no picnic either. And how many of you long for a time here where all 216 seats were full? Perhaps Elgin in the 1950s. The world might have seemed simpler then, but was it really better?

Sometimes, what is too painful to remember we choose to forget. I stole that line from
Barbra Streisand, The Way We Were. Remember the whole song?
Mem’ries,
Light the corners of my mind
Misty water-colored memories
Of the way we were
Scattered pictures,
Of the smiles we left behind
Smiles we gave to one another
For the way we were
Can it be that it was all so simple then?
Or has time re-written every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we? Could we?
Mem’ries, may be beautiful and yet
What’s too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget
So it’s the laughter
We will remember
Whenever we remember…
The way we were…
The way we were..

The way we were. How were we? What if our memory starts to fade? Or blur. Or is too painful to remember.

Shortly after my mother died I returned to Grand Rapids, to moderate a book discussion on the last book she had chosen for her book group. The Madonnas of Lennigrad is a haunting book that moves between war torn, besieged St. Petersburg and her present day Alzheimers. She had kept herself vibrant by remembering her docent speech at the Hermitage. Now she was struggling to remember who she was today. I was struck by the discussion. How did we know that the siege of Lennigrad was as bad as it was portrayed. Others present answered that one. It was worse. Why wouldn’t she have told her children about how bad it was? I tried to explain that many people who undergo that kind of stress do not tell their children of the horrors—Vietnam vets, from who we first learned about PTSD, rape victims, Holocaust survivors. They don’t want to relive those painful memories or burden their children with them. Then a person asked how did we know that the Holocaust happened.

Because Hitler documented everything, I wanted to scream. Because we are taught to remember. To never forget. To keep telling the stories. To interview the survivors. To keep that memory alive. Just like today’s portion commands. Remember to never forget.

But it is not enough to remember. And here is where the Irish blessing comes back in. Because in order to survive. In order to thrive, we need to forget the little things We need to in the words of this blessing,

Always remember to forget
The things that made you sad.
But never forget to remember
The things that made you glad.

That is what Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson said recently, “Holy Forgetting: the ability to let go of the trivial, the toxic, and the entrapping. Cultivate the capacity to selectively forget in order to truly inhabit the present….It is good sense to overlook an offense.” Proverbs 19:11.

Yet it seems there is a difference between a garden variety offense and the sin of Amalek, attacking the hungry, weary rear, or Haman or Hitler.

Perhaps there is one more song. Peter Yarrow wrote Light One Candle. In fact, as Simon and I pause to celebrate our anniversary, we remember that we sang this as part of Havdalah at the rehearsal dinner. We remember, with nostalgia the daisy petals from heaven that fell that morning. But these words tell us what we must do.

What is the memory that’s valued so highly
That we keep it alive in that flame?
What’s the commitment to those who died
That we cry out they’ve not died in vain?
We have come this far always believing
That justice would somehow prevail
This is the burden, this is the promise
T
his is why we will not fail.
Keeping that memory alive only works for me if we work for a time when the rear guard is not attacked, where an evil despot does not try to wipe out an entire people, where no longer will there be a genocide, any time, any place, against any people. This is why we must remember to never forget Amalek. To spur us to memory and action.

I am still having a hard time getting writing done. We had a fabulous trip and most of this was done but needed polishing. Here it is…

I was going to start with the theme song from the Love Boat. After all, Helen and Manny have enjoyed cruising and we are here to celebrate that love is in the air. Instead, it is almost baseball season so, instead, look around you. If you build it they will come. And all the more so, if you feed them they will come. And that is appropriate for this celebration also. This is our field of dreams.

Last week as we left the sanctuary and entered the social hall, Helen said to me, “You know next week Manny and I will celebrate our 60th anniversary. I think I’ll sponsor Kiddush.” That was the starting point. And it is nice. Sweet. Generous. And we are delighted that people want to sponsor Kiddush for happy events as well as yahrzeits.

It turns out that her timing is everything. Beshert. Destined.You see this week’s portion is about two things. Two portions really. This is a day with an extra reading. The first reading is as Heschel explains about building a palace in time and space—Shabbat celebrated in the Mishkan and that is what we are doing here, celebrating Shabbat in this beautiful building. Our own fields of dreams.

But the extra reading is about bringing a half shekel. Why were the Israelites commanded to bring a half-shekel to build the mishkan, the Tabernacle?

Because everyone could do it. Whether you were rich or poor you could add a half shekel. And together you create a beautiful place for the dwelling of G-d. That in dwelling presence of G-d we talked about last week, the Shechinah. The Shechinah is related to Mishkan. They have the same root. The In Dwelling Presence of G-d lives in the Miskhan, the Dwelling Place for G-d. The Shechinah dwells in each of us.

In this way, we all have a stake in what happens here. We all have access to the Divine. And that is pretty darn important. Simon’s childhood temple, Congregation Sinai, used to proclaim proudly the words of Isaiah, “My House Shall Be A House of Prayer For All People.” right over the majestic entranceway. That is exactly what we are building here. That is that wide-open tent we talk about, warm and welcoming to all who enter. That beautiful tent. Make no mistake. This building. This very building. Our building.The one that the Franks and the Lindows and others from previous generations had the vision to create and maintain. It is that lovely tent. That beautiful dwelling place. The one that you all have built with your shekels. “Ma tovu ohalecha Ya’akov. Mishkanotecha Yisrael.” How lovely are your tents O Jacob; your dwelling places, Your Mishkan—O Israel.” It is a dwelling place for G-d and for us. A beautiful legacy.

And why just a half-shekel? Maimonides begins to answer that question. “everything that is for the sake of G-d should be of the best and most beautiful. When one builds a house of prayer, it should be more beautiful than his own dwelling. When one feeds the hungry, he should feed him of the best and sweetest of his table. . . . Whenever one designates something for a holy purpose, he should sanctify the finest of his possessions, as it is written (Leviticus 3:16), ‘The choicest to G-d’” (Mishneh Torah, Hil. Issurei Mizbe’ach 7:11).

We still do that. There is a concept of hiddur haMitzvah, the beautification of the mitzvah. That’s why there are so many different seder plates that you can buy in our gift shop. And it extends beyond ceremonial art. Don’t laugh, but when I was first here, some one bemoaned that we were buying cheaper toilet paper. Shouldn’t we buy the very best toilet paper since this was a house for G-d? Why should we settle for second best? That expectation of excellence is something this portion is trying to imbue us with. For our synagogues and our homes.

Because our homes become a mikdash me’at, a little sanctuary. When we celebrate Shabbat at the synagogue and in our homes, Shabbat becomes a palace in space and time, a foretaste of the world to come.

That is what we are doing here today, bringing our whole selves to this mishkan, building a home for G-d on earth, a palace in time and space. We give ourselves fully to G-d and to each other—in this community so carefully built and to our partners. We realize that without this gift of the half-shekel we are incomplete. It was Robin Williams who said, “I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up alone. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel alone.” We are better here, together, with G-d and the people we love.
But why a half and not a whole? If everything is supposed to be the best?
It goes back to the first wedding. We are better together than apart. We need a helpmate. As the text says, “It is not good for man to be alone.” But even in the first marriage—Adam to Eve—we are told in the midrash that G-d bedecked and bejeweled Eve. It is a sweet story. Yet, it is more than sweet. It is, as the Kabbalists teach, destined. Beshert. When G-d created humans, the first pair, was a single soul separated. Ideally, if we are lucky enough, a marriage is the reunification of that single pair, the ying and the yang borrowing from another tradition. The reunion necessitates our taking a deep breath, experiencing tzimtzum, the Divine room for the other, to experience ourselves as not whole but being completed by the other half, that half-shekel, that partner that makes us whole again, just like in the beginning.
But that is not all. Where else does that measure turn up—a half shekel? And here is where it becomes “Bashert”, destined, that we talk about this this morning. I owe the insight to Chabad. Now some of you are thinking, Chabad, that is not your usual source. But in fact, it can be a very good source, and one I read every week, together with AJR’s D’var Torah, Rabbi Lord Sacks, USJC Torah Sparks and URJ’s 10 Minutes of Torah. I guess you can say…I myself am a pluralistic Jew, plumbing the depths for all 70 faces of Torah. But Chabad seems especially appropriate today since Helen and Manny have a son that is a Chabad rabbi! In fact, Helen and Manny should be proud of all their children and grandchildren who are so active and so knowledgeable. Shortly we will have their son Gene honor his parents by chanting Haftarah.

But back to the question. Where else do we find a half-shekel? In the story of Eliezar finding a wife for Isaac. Who remembers the story?

Abraham sends his servant to find a wife for Isaac. Eliezar stops at the well. Rebecca rushes to draw water for him—and for his camels. In fact, all the verbs are active, rushing verbs.

The man took a golden ring, a half-shekel in weight; and two bracelets of ten shekels’ weight of gold for her hands. (Genesis 24:22)
The story continues and reads like a Hollywood script. He is welcomed into Laban’s home. Rebecca is consulted. She actually says yes. In fact, we derive the Jewish law that the woman has to say consent. She has a right of refusal. More gifts. Dinner. They set out on the caravan. They reach the field where Isaac is meditating. She lifts her eyes. She asks who is that man. She falls off her camel. He takes her to his mother’s tent and he loves her. The first mention of love in the Bible. And is comforted after his mother dies.
To this day a ring, perfectly round and unbroken is part of our wedding ceremony. Look at your hands…look at that ring…think of the promise you made to each other. Now I invite Helen and Manny to stand. And everyone else who is here with their partner to stand as I chant the Sheva Brachot, in memory of that day long ago when you gave each other a half-shekel.

I have gotten out of the habit of writing. There are lots of excuses. I’ve been busy. My material is fresher if I do it as a discussion rather than a formal written sermon. Others have said what I am trying to say more eloquently. What I say doesn’t matter. It doesn’t count.

Then rcently this turned up in my Facebook feed. “You must learn to hush the demons that whisper, “No one wants to read this. This has already been said. Your voice doesn’t matter.” In the rare moments when the voices finally hush, you might hear the angels sing.” (MargaretFeinberg.com).

Perfect, I said. And it relates to what I said on Shabbat morning. On Shabbat we read another portion about building the mishkan. Carefully detailed plans. Designed to build a home, a beautiful home for the Presence of G-d.

There were two sentences that jumped off the page at me. One was the structure of providing an offering, “one in the morning and one in the evening.” I was reminded of Rabbi Nehamia Polen, professor at Hebrew College, who would tell the story that much of this narrative is to push the reset button, to call down the Presence of G-d just like on Mount Sinai. There is smoke, incense, quaking, thunder, lightening just like on Mount Sinai. In our ritual, we are recreating the experience of Sinai.

And then G-d dwells among us. That “Presence of G-d” in fancy English translations, is “Shechinah” in Hebrew. And it is related to “Mishkan”. So by building a house of G-d, a house for G-d, the mishkan, we welcome the In-dwelling Presence of G-d, the Shechinah.

And we learn the detailed patterns for the clothes that the priests wore. The gown, the ephod, the breastplate, the jewels (all 12 of them, representing the 12 Tribes of Israel and Jacob’s sons), the mantle, the bells and pomegranates.

But why? Why does any of this matter? I think it has to do with ritual and the power of ritual. What is a ritual?

It is something we do as a routine, to call us back to another time. To hit that reset button that Rabbi Polen was talking about. To provide structure, safety and security. To enable the ineffable to happen.

We do this with lots of things. Birthdays follow a prescribed ritual. Birthday cake. Birthday candles. Making a wish. Presents. Going to a Michigan football game follows a prescribed ritual. Tailgating. The band. The specific songs the band plays. The cheers. The wave. Those are secular examples.

Judaism has its ritual too. Lots of it. How we celebrate holidays and Shabbat. How we pray. How we eat. How we dress. Most of our lives are prescribed. Some say that there are too many “Thou Shall Nots” and not enough fun things.
But what it we look at it in a different way? What if we look at another verse in this parsha?

Moses is commanded to “kindle” the ner tamid. The Eternal Light as we teach the kids. That light that is supposed to be lit in perpetuity, we go to great lengths to make sure it lasts. Oh sure, these days it is a little easier with compact florescent light bulbs. But in the old days, this was a task that involved everybody watching. And as soon as the oil burned out, more was added. It was an awesome responsibility for the entire community.

But the verb “to kindle” really is closer to lift up, to raise up. “V’ha’alot” The same verb we use to go up to the bimah, to have an aliyah, to go up to Jerusalem, to make aliyah. Somehow the act of lighting the light, the ner tamid, raises us up.

Rabbi Kalisch says that the ner tamid “serves the purpose of giving light to G-d,” as it rises. Cue the old Girl Scout song here…”Rise up O flame, by thy light glowing. Show to us beauty, vision and joy.” And at the same time as we rise up to G-d, it brings G-d’s presence down to us.

That is the function of ritual. It reminds us of the past and connects us to previous generations. It brings us closer to G-d so that G-d’s presence can dwell among us and it lifts us up. It raises our spirits. It is part of how we can create “meaningful observance.”

There is one other piece here that is important. February has become known as disability awareness month. This verse makes it clear that the light has to be kept, watched, guarded by the WHOLE community. It is not just the priests who keep the fire going.

The Midrash teaches, “Instruct the Israelites to bring you clear oil of beaten olives . . .” Not because I (God) need it, but so that you should give light to Me just as I have given light to you . . . . This is compared to a blind man and a sighted man who were walking together. The sighted man said to his companion, “I will guide you along the way.” When they arrived at their destination and came indoors, the sighted man asked the blind man to please kindle a light to benefit him (the sighted man). In this manner, the blind man would not be overwhelmed by his debt of gratitude to the sighted man, and would recognize himself as capable of benefiting others.” ( Midrash Sh’mot Rabbah 36:2)

As we learned last week, each of us has unique gifts that we bring to build this holy place. In this case the midrash is reminding us that it is those with sight and those without. Both are needed. This coming Shabbat our children will teach us the Sh’ma in sign language. Their simple actions enhances the meaning of the word “Listen” and it makes those holy words accessible to all. This too helps us create meaningful observance.

Does G-d need the light? That is for you to answer. But it is clear to me that we do. It helps us fulfill the teaching of Menachem Mendel of Kotzk. He asked, “Where is G-d?” and answered, “Wherever we let G-d in.” This is what we learn from the power of light and the power of ritual.

“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”
JK Rowling

Today’s Torah portion is about hitting rock bottom. Literally. He had been thrown into a pit, a dry well. He hit that rock bottom and was assumed dead. Our scene begins with Joseph being taken down to Egypt. “Rescued” by the Ishmaelites and taken to Egypt and sold as a slave. He is now in Potiphar’s house. Potiphar’s wife is attracted to Joseph.

The midrash asks who did the taking? Why was he taken? On the simple level, it seems easy—the Ishmaelites, right? That’s what the text says. Not so fast.

“Love is as strong as Death but Jealousy is as severe as Sheol” Midrash Tanhuma. And it explains that Jacob loved Rachel but Rachel was jealous of her sister Leah. Jonathan loved David but Saul was jealous of David. And Jacob loved Joseph. But his brothers were jealous of him because his father loved him to excess.

In the midrash, Joseph was seen as a Torah scholar, a prophet and one who nourished his brothers. He was a good person—despite some of his upbringing. And he falls. He falls far.

So the Zohar sees this differently. Every time, someone goes down to Egypt—it is a metaphor for hitting rock bottom. And the Zohar tells us that only from the depth of darkness can we see the true light. The true light that is G-d.

In the verse, “And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potifar bought him” (Beresheet 39:1), why is it written, “brought down” rather than ‘went down to Egypt’? HE ANSWERS, The Holy One, blessed be He, consented to the act OF SELLING JOSEPH TO EGYPT, so that the decree He made between the pieces would be fulfilled, as it is written, “Know surely that your seed shall be a stranger” (Beresheet 15:13). “And Potiphar bought him,” to commit sin with him, namely sodomy.

But the Zohar explains that there are reasons that G-d has to bring our ancestors down to Egypt. Perhaps it is a little too predestined in my usual theology. Yet it is informative.
God told Jacob in Genesis 46:3
”לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל אֲשִׂימְךָ שָׁם- כִּי,תִּירָא מֵרְדָה מִצְרַיְמָה- אַל; אָנֹכִי הָאֵל אֱלֹהֵי אָבִיךָ,וַיֹּאמֶר“
And He said: ‘I am God, the God of your father; fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of you a great nation”
And in Genesis 46:4 we read
”עֵינֶיךָ- יָשִׁית יָדוֹ עַל, וְיוֹסֵף;עָלֹה- אַעַלְךָ גַם, וְאָנֹכִי, אֵרֵד עִמְּךָ מִצְרַיְמָה,אָנֹכִי“
“I will go down with you into Egypt; and I will also surely bring you up again; and Joseph shall put his hand upon your eyes.’”
So we learn that every time someone goes down to Egypt, frequently to relieve hunger and famine, G-d goes with him. He is not alone.
This idea is captured in the song from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Close every door to me
Hide all the world from me
Bar all the windows
and shut out the light
Do what you want with me
Hate me and laugh at me
darken my daytime
and torture my night
If my life were important I
Would ask will I live or die
But I know the answers
Lie far from this world

Close every door to me
Keep those I love from me
Children of Israel are never alone
For I know I shall find
my own peace of mind
for I have been promised
A land of my own

Children of Israel are never alone. G-d goes with us. That is the consistent promise of the Torah. G-d goes with Abraham when he moves from Haran to Canaan. G-d is with Hagar when she is at the well, and later when she puts her son under a bush, sure that he will die. G-d goes with Eliezer when he tries to find a bride for Isaac. G-d goes with Jacob when he flees back Haran and dreams of angels ascending and descending a ladder. G-d is with Moses when he discovers the burning bush and later when Moses is promised that G-d will go with Moses and lighten his burden and give him rest.

And yet, each of these ancestors has a dark moment of the soul. They have to experience those in order to climb out of the pit. On a website called Zohar.com, run by the Kabbalah Center, that organization that Madonna supports, they said about Joseph,

“In the course of spiritual development, we sometimes have to fail in order to build a greater vessel that can hold all the Light that awaits us as we ascend to the next level. This is what happened to Joseph when he was “brought down to Egypt.” Egypt is a code word for darkness and disconnection from the Light of The Creator. Reading these passages helps attune us to the angelic hierarchies and the spiritual energy forces they transmit. These forces give us power to rise when we fall, strength to stand after we stumble ““ and this serves to increase the size of our vessel, so that we can receive even greater Light in our lives. These verses also help us expand our vessel so that it is not necessary for us to fall quite so far down or to stumble quite so often.”

This is language that is echoed in 12 Step programs. The idea that someone with an addiction problem needs to hit rock bottom before climbing back up. Rock bottom is a time that causes an addict to reach the lowest possible point in his or her life. Like Joseph in our Torah story today. For each person struggling with addiction, this looks different. It is that sense that life cannot get any worse. They are alone. Isolated. Removed. As Jacob is first in the pit and then in jail.

But today’s portion comes as an anecdote. Joseph becomes a leader in jail. He continues his role as a dream interpreter. People remember him. When his friends get out of jail, they recommend him to no less than the Pharaoh to interpret the Pharaoh’s dreams. He becomes the vice-roy of Egypt. It is a classic rags to riches story.

JK Rowling, now the richest woman in the world, is a rags to riches story too. Before Harry Potter, she was a single mom on public assistance. Her understanding of this cycle, her own personal failures, even after Harry Potter, especially on a trip to Portugal, enabled her to write a non-fiction book based on her commencement speech to Harvard. Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination. She says about herself, “Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than I was and began diverting all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.”

As a marketing consultant, I worked with the Technology Licensing Office of MIT. They taught that 90% of start-up businesses fail. In fact, they expect students and professors to have at least two businesses fail before they have a successful one. Having a business fail can feel like being thrown into the pit. It can seem devoid of light. It can feel like hitting rock bottom. But slowly, slowly, those students climb back out of the pit. Like the song, “Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again.”

Chanukah begins tomorrow night. The Festival of Lights, its very name means rededication. In the Talmud there is an argument about how to light the candles. Should we light them as the miracle occurred, beginning with the most amount of light like that little cruse of oil that diminished during the week or should we start in darkness and keep adding light each night of the week. The rabbis conclude that we should do as Hillel suggests. Each night we should add light. Each night we should add joy.

The message of today’s portion and our celebration of Chanukah is simple. Our tradition teaches us that no matter how bad our life seems, G-d will go with us. That we can pick ourselves up. That we can rededicate ourselves to what is important, just as JK Rowling did. Our tradition teaches us to not lose hope. Our tradition tells us to find the light. To find the joy. May it be so for each of us at this darkest time of the year.

On Sunday I presented at Limmud Chicago, an interesting movement of serious (and not so serious) adult learners who are passionate about Judaism. I submitted an application back in August and was chosen to speak about my experiences in Guatemala with American Jewish World Service visiting a coffee plantation, CCDA and my program in Elgin called Java and Jews.

CCDA, a collaborative in Guatemala that grows coffee, honey and macadamia nuts, builds community by selling produce, education of women, protecting land rights, documenting human rights abuses. When we visited CCDA we learned that sometimes building community comes with real risks. There are 84 arrests warrants out for the leaders of CCDA. Nonetheless, the director of CCDA was elected to the Guatemalan Congress in the recent elections.

Perhaps even more importantly we learned two stories from members of CCDA. One woman told us that with the proceeds of the eggs from her single chicken in the Patio Systemes Group which teaches women how to do container gardening on the patios, she was able to send her daughter all the way through middle school. Her daughter is now in high school. The woman, dressed in jeans and a traditional Mayan top, can not read or write but has learned the importance of education, the rights that women have to education and the hope that community brings. Another woman, told us that she learned through CCDA that she had the right to tell someone no, that she did not have to submit to sex. In her own words, she explained, she prevented her own rape.

It was my job at CCDA to thank our hosts. I spoke about my husband, the dairy farmer and his love the land and how he roasts his own green coffee beans. I spoke about Abraham buying a burial plot for his wife Sarah. (This past week’s Torah portion, in fact!) and that as Jews we understand the value of owning land and then the ongoing struggle to preserve that land.

In Elgin, I introduced a program I call Java and Jews. It is an opportunity to sit over coffee once a month and discuss any number of things. We meet at a Starbucks, Blue Box Cafe and Calibre, two local independent cafes. It gives people easy, casual access to the rabbi. It deepens the conversations more than I could ever do in a 10 minute sermon or discussion on a Shabbat morning and it builds friendships. I gave out tips of how to set up similar programs in other communities. And coffee. We modeled the program by having fair trade, kosher, organic coffee from Guatemala and all the fixings. Great for a late Sunday afternoon. We created a community of learners.

What I could not have predicted all the way back in August, would be the controversy over a red cup. Part of me is just shaking my head. Really? Starbucks in trouble because its Christmas cup is red but does not have snowflakes or other “holiday” decorations on them? Excuse me, not holiday, Christmas decorations. I thought red and green were Christmas colors. I thought snowflakes were not Christian symbols.

I am not one who objects when someone says “Merry Christmas” to me. I smile and respond, “Merry Christmas”. It is not my holiday but I enjoy the festive lights, the good food, the music, the time with family and friends. Frankly the building of community. I wish it would really bring
Peace on earth, goodwill to man.”

There are pluses and minuses to Starbucks, to be sure. They do have programs to help farmers grow fair trade coffee, but not all their coffee is fair trade. They do a good job with employee benefits. They could probably go further. And on Veterans Day, it is important to note that Starbucks is committed to hiring 10,000 veterans and military spouses.

Red cups, with or without snowflakes and ornaments? I will proudly go get my Starbucks this week, and next week, and the week after that. Because they are a company I want to be linked with as a person of faith, as a person committed to social justice and building community. I may even bring my own cup–with or without dreidls–because that would be better for the environment than all those disposable cups. But when I proposed to talk about building community through a coffee cup, I just didn’t know that Starbucks red cups would become a part of it.

Written on Monday, Finished on Friday….

Today was a day off. After the frenetic pace of the High Holidays—Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and then Sukkot and Simchat Torah, most of which involved Monday observances, all I wanted to do was stay in bed. But that is not what I do. I am a life long volunteer. So I got up.

Today was the Inaugural Interfaith Build for Habitat for Humanity Northern Fox River Valley. Where else would I be? I have now worked on Habitat for Humanity projects in Massachusetts, North and South Carolina, New Orleans (three times), Indiana and Illinois. Why? Because they understand that building houses strengthens communities. Affordable safe housing is a right, not a wanna have.

The most powerful experience of my life was working on a Habitat project the day after 9/11. I’ve told this story before. I was in New York on 9/11. I managed to get home late that night. The very next morning, the clergy of Lowell, through the Greater Lowell Interfaith Leadership Alliance, (GLILA), was hard at work building a house. I sheetrocked a closet. When the world seemed to be collapsing, we were building. What more powerful statement can there be for peace.

So today I painted 300 shingles for a house that was built in 1892. It was not in good shape when Habitat acquired the property. It will eventually house 2 families. Again. It will help stabilize the neighborhood. And in the process, it will build community.

I am not a great handy man. This stuff does not come easily to me. (Although I may have found my niche painting shingles!) But it is important work. So part of what I do is rally the troops and get others to turn out. I tell the story.

Part of what I did today was to tell stories of Guatemala and American Jewish World Service. As I stood there painting shingles I talked about the theory of upstream-downstream that I learned on a boat crossing Lake Atilan. Why do people wind up homeless? Follow the river upstream. Why is there such a need for Habitat and its work? Worldwide. How can we get Habitat not only to build but also to do advocacy? I talked about gemilut chasadim (acts of love and kindness) and tzedek (justice). About housing someone today who is homeless because the need is real and immediate and making sure for the long haul that all people have access to safe, affordable housing. Their new volunteer coordinator was intrigued. And she has been to Guatemala so we had that in common. There will be more conversations with her I am sure. It is about building a network. About building community.

So today I painted 300 shingles. Big deal. It is a drop (of paint) in a bucket. But it is what I am called to do.

The big deal was seeing four Jews show up to work with a historically Christian organization. Habitat is learning that we can all agree on providing affordable, safe housing.

The big deal were all the casual conversations that took place. Music. Travel. Thanksgiving. Work. Retirement. And the religious humor. Birds in the trees pooping on our fresh paint—that’s the birds and birds. They come in two by two. More boxes of shingles—everywhere? They are multiplying like fishes and loaves. And agreeing that veggie pizza is the best—works for all the vegetarians and those who don’t mix meat and milk and those who don’t eat pork.

The big deal was watching my husband hold a ladder for hours for the imam who was up on that ladder carefully measuring and then installing siding. That is the image of interfaith cooperation. Interfaith trust. Interfaith peace.

There are lots of ways and places to volunteer. Pick something you are passionate about. Pick something you love doing. Volunteer. My congregants volunteer at the synagogue. Along the way they ensure the congregation’s survival, they make friends and they build community.